Brainwaves of Sken

If you’re into this set of genres, please feel free to copy this into a comment below and tell me what you’ve read. If there’s something I haven’t read here that you think is a travesty, please speak up. I’m looking at you, netmouse.

If you’d rather just pick one book here (or your favorite not listed) to tell me about, please do so! I’m currently reading an anthology of cyberpunk shorts, which I was surprised to discover included the inspiration for Total Recall.

(I can’t say I entirely agree with this list, but when does one ever entirely agree with a collection?)

Also, how long will SF and F be lumped together? I love them both, but the only thing they really have in common is that they (generally) don’t look exactly like today’s world.

This is a list of the 50 most significant science fiction/fantasy novels, 1953-2002, according to the Science Fiction Book Club. Bold the ones you’ve read, strike-out the ones you hated, italicize those you started but never finished, and put an asterisk beside the ones you loved.

1. The Lord of the Rings, J.R.R. Tolkien
2. The Foundation Trilogy, Isaac Asimov
3. Dune, Frank Herbert
4. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert A. Heinlein * (1961, people. Of course it’s sexist. Is there a baby in that bathwater?)
5. A Wizard of Earthsea, Ursula K. Le Guin
6. Neuromancer, William Gibson*
7. Childhood’s End, Arthur C. Clarke (yawn)
8. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick
9. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
10. Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury *
The other 40

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It’s true, we haven’t completed a number of major sections (bios, events, legal), but I’m still quite pleased with what we’ve got up there. I’m working with Ben on creating some demo video, both small segments for the “packages” page and longer segments for the samples page. Meanwhile, woo!

Finally!

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Those of you who had a paid account on Nov 4, go here to get a week’s extension due to the outtages they had recently.

I find it really funny that, after the extension, my acct now expires 12-26.

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People ask me fairly often about my religious beliefs, and I’m usually a little cagey about it, because it is difficult to explain how I can both feel differently about the structure of the universe and feel deeply connected to the same things my more religious friends do. I kinda wrote this to address that, in the context of christmas. Comments and personal stories are welcome, as ever (… especially anyone I’ve been with for any sort of ritual holiday. This means you, L-town).

So, as I’m driving to work today, I notice that 100.3 has started in on their ‘ultra-early christmas xtravaganza’ of music, and I started thinking about how I feel about christmas.

First, let’s talk religion: I should say I’ve participated in many varieties of religious ceremony. My family isn’t religious, though my grandmother has been a student of religion since long before I was born, and I’m the only person in our family who’d put up with (and enjoy) that kind of discussion, from an early age. I consider myself (if I had to identify) humanistic, and those ideals don’t specifically reject the beliefs of others like, say, Atheism does. I don’t actively disbelieve in a god or gods, I simply don’t consider their existence (or absence) important in determining the direction or morality of my life.

More on Christmas and how I relate to it

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Ann Arbor with friends, Nov. 4 and 5

Photos star myself, Lucy, Rikki, Ozy, Kim, Kyle, Resk and Dan the Vegan!

(What I want to know is, who has the pic of -me- with the bottle? I totally outdid Kim!)
EDIT: here

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Even better than all of that, Ben came by and dragged me out to Zack’s, where we got some serious amounts of work done.

And then we came back. And as he was driving away, I realized I’d locked my keys. In my apartment.

Fortunately, we live in the age of cellphones, so I called him back, we double-checked his car, and then I texted Lucy with my nearly-dead phone, and she found out the number to my apartment complex, which I’d never programmed into my phone (believe me, it is now)

After 30 minutes, no one had called back from either of the pager numbers. I was starting to lose hope that I wouldn’t have to crash at Ben’s place and have him take me in to work.

However, my neighbor (the one that makes the weird loud noises at all hours) comes home and I explain my situation. He says “Did you lock your deadbolt?” “No” “do you have a credit card?” “… yes.” “No problem!”

So we go upstairs, and he proves exactly how safe we all are by using my walmart gift card (thanks grandma!) to open my door.

Perhaps I will be using that deadbolt after all.

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So, trying to deal with my comcast bill fucked me on my verizon bill – 100 minutes extra there, plus paying 1 minute of airtime per sent or received picture, regardless of wireless carrier, added up to totally fuck me this month. 95% of the people I talk to are verizon customers, but the rest of you bastards had better switch just for me!

*sigh*

I got them to give me 25 dollars off. NEXT month. And I was set up for auto bill pay, so 130 bucks have already flitted their way out of my account.

Good times, folks, good times.

*STABBY*

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Up high and looking southward across Detroit, the city looks blue. Rather than being full of grey clouds, the bluish clouds descend low enough to paint the skyscrapers with their colors. It’s not a fog, exactly, yet everything looks dark. The tallest nearby structures (huge lamps above the freeway) have yet to burst, though all the cars have their lights on.

My eyes follow the red lights down woodward rather naturally, past the still baseball-shaped ferris wheel in front of Comerica Park and up to the Fox Theatre sign and the rotating hockey puck above a local sports bar. As I watch the impossibly tall cranes lift into place I-beams longer than my apartment, the thought that occurs to me is tha this city is being shaped into a mecca for sports and gambling. That’s the mission being followed to the letter in order to Bring Detroit About, and … it just doesn’t interest me.

Don’t get me wrong, I have my own distractions that I enjoy. But I wonder why there aren’t any grocery stores in the city, why are parks sparse and equipment rusted?

Continue reading ‘He took the midnight train going anywhere’

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